DOUBLEDEUCE 1
69 Cal.
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2008
- Messages
- 4,150
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The story behind this is very long. I'll try to be brief. Several years ago I contracted with a builder to build two custom flintlock rifles. One was to be a retirement gift to myself, the second was a surprise gift for my brother. After many delays on the part of the builder, and promises of completion, the rifles were finally delivered this past February.
Upon opening the rifle crate I thought the builder might have sent rifles meant for another customer. The rifles were clearly not what I had contracted for or agreed to in any way. Both rifles were supposed to be identical, a matched pair if you will. They were not. I decided to keep my mouth shut for the moment because my brother was so excited. We had a house full of people to witness the surprise for him.
Inspecting the rifles, I found the bore on my rifle plugged in a couple of spots. We cleared the barrel and found what looked like plant material and small pieces of fabric that had been left inside. There were approximately fourteen rough spots or gouges in the bore from the muzzle to the breech. We took photographs of the damaged bore as well as many other glaring mistakes and of shoddy workmanship on both rifles.
I contacted the builder and sent him the photos. His reply was my "disappointment" is "noted". He would not address the issues I had outlined, but did offer to take the rifles back and refund my money if and when he sold the rifles. One rifle was completely unserviceable. The second rifle was questionable. We kept the rifles.
I contacted the maker of the barrels, John Getz. He was interested in the heavily damaged barrel after I told him what happened. I sent the barrel to him for his inspection and opinion. He also had his father look at the barrel and offer an opinion. The barrel was damaged by the builder during the browning process. The bore had filled with the browning solution. After the browning process, the solution was not neutralized or cleaned from the bore. The inside of the barrel had been eaten away in many spots almost the entire length of the barrel. Getz told me the barrel could not be salvaged. This barrel had never been fired. When Getz returns the damaged barrel to me, my brother and I intend to cut the barrel in half lengthwise to expose the amount of damage.
My brother's rifle appeared to be safe. Both of us are lifelong shooters. My brother is a competative shooter and I have extensive firearms experience due to my profession ( I am now retired ).
My brother test fired his rifle and found it to function. On Sunday, the 10 of July, we went to the range together for an afternoon of shooting. After only a few rounds, my brother's rifle had a near-catastrophic failure. The rifle had approx only fifty rounds through it. He was shooting 70 grs FFFG. The barrel is .50 cal.
We were standing on the firing line. My brother was to my left, twenty feet away from me. I watched as he touched off his shot. The sound was odd and the recoil twisted and rolled into his chest and face. He reloaded for another shot and stepped to the line to fire. Nothing happened. He inspected the rifle and found the vent liner had blown out. We looked for the liner thinking it had just fallen out of the barrel. My nephew who was there with us found the vent liner very far away from where my brother stood to shoot.
We reconstructed our positions when the shot had been fired, all based on our shoe prints in the dust. There were only four shooters at the range at that time, all members of our family. We determined the vent liner missed hitting me in the head by a scant six inches, passing over my right shoulder. It also missed the head of another shooter who was seated between my brother and I when the liner failed. I was twenty feet away from my brother. The liner flew a total of thirty-six feet before it struck a tree and bounced back six feet toward me. We marked the tree and measured everything with a tape measure. There was no guessing here. That ended our day at the range.
That night at my brother's house, we took apart the rifle and cleaned it, taking photographs all along. We found the vent hole for the liner had clearly been drilled out of round and when the vent liner hole was initially drilled, the bit penetrated the surface of the opposite wall of the bore. The threads for the liner were only cut into less than half of the side of the vent hole. There was evidence the liner struck the outside edge of the powder trough of the lock when it failed. This caused the liner to deflect slightly and miss hitting me.
We have photos and will post them for others to gain some information and insight. Hopefully I would ultimately like to warn away any potential customers from this shoddy gunbuilder. I believe he is unethical and a fraud who produces inferior and dangerous products. From a pure safety standpoint, I believe this post is necessary. :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing:
Upon opening the rifle crate I thought the builder might have sent rifles meant for another customer. The rifles were clearly not what I had contracted for or agreed to in any way. Both rifles were supposed to be identical, a matched pair if you will. They were not. I decided to keep my mouth shut for the moment because my brother was so excited. We had a house full of people to witness the surprise for him.
Inspecting the rifles, I found the bore on my rifle plugged in a couple of spots. We cleared the barrel and found what looked like plant material and small pieces of fabric that had been left inside. There were approximately fourteen rough spots or gouges in the bore from the muzzle to the breech. We took photographs of the damaged bore as well as many other glaring mistakes and of shoddy workmanship on both rifles.
I contacted the builder and sent him the photos. His reply was my "disappointment" is "noted". He would not address the issues I had outlined, but did offer to take the rifles back and refund my money if and when he sold the rifles. One rifle was completely unserviceable. The second rifle was questionable. We kept the rifles.
I contacted the maker of the barrels, John Getz. He was interested in the heavily damaged barrel after I told him what happened. I sent the barrel to him for his inspection and opinion. He also had his father look at the barrel and offer an opinion. The barrel was damaged by the builder during the browning process. The bore had filled with the browning solution. After the browning process, the solution was not neutralized or cleaned from the bore. The inside of the barrel had been eaten away in many spots almost the entire length of the barrel. Getz told me the barrel could not be salvaged. This barrel had never been fired. When Getz returns the damaged barrel to me, my brother and I intend to cut the barrel in half lengthwise to expose the amount of damage.
My brother's rifle appeared to be safe. Both of us are lifelong shooters. My brother is a competative shooter and I have extensive firearms experience due to my profession ( I am now retired ).
My brother test fired his rifle and found it to function. On Sunday, the 10 of July, we went to the range together for an afternoon of shooting. After only a few rounds, my brother's rifle had a near-catastrophic failure. The rifle had approx only fifty rounds through it. He was shooting 70 grs FFFG. The barrel is .50 cal.
We were standing on the firing line. My brother was to my left, twenty feet away from me. I watched as he touched off his shot. The sound was odd and the recoil twisted and rolled into his chest and face. He reloaded for another shot and stepped to the line to fire. Nothing happened. He inspected the rifle and found the vent liner had blown out. We looked for the liner thinking it had just fallen out of the barrel. My nephew who was there with us found the vent liner very far away from where my brother stood to shoot.
We reconstructed our positions when the shot had been fired, all based on our shoe prints in the dust. There were only four shooters at the range at that time, all members of our family. We determined the vent liner missed hitting me in the head by a scant six inches, passing over my right shoulder. It also missed the head of another shooter who was seated between my brother and I when the liner failed. I was twenty feet away from my brother. The liner flew a total of thirty-six feet before it struck a tree and bounced back six feet toward me. We marked the tree and measured everything with a tape measure. There was no guessing here. That ended our day at the range.
That night at my brother's house, we took apart the rifle and cleaned it, taking photographs all along. We found the vent hole for the liner had clearly been drilled out of round and when the vent liner hole was initially drilled, the bit penetrated the surface of the opposite wall of the bore. The threads for the liner were only cut into less than half of the side of the vent hole. There was evidence the liner struck the outside edge of the powder trough of the lock when it failed. This caused the liner to deflect slightly and miss hitting me.
We have photos and will post them for others to gain some information and insight. Hopefully I would ultimately like to warn away any potential customers from this shoddy gunbuilder. I believe he is unethical and a fraud who produces inferior and dangerous products. From a pure safety standpoint, I believe this post is necessary. :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: